PSI Invalid
by NeueHaasGrotesk
Summary: "Please, Aoko," Kaito begs, his voice shaking. "Save him." It isn't as though they could have left him there to die.


A.N: Wow this was so long. I realized I've never put it up here, so here you go. I had a lot of trouble and a lot of pain trying to rewrite the entire story, and this dragged on for about half a year or so. Still, I'm more or less happy with the outcome and I hope you enjoy reading this. Dystopian (?) setting, established Kaito/Aoko and developing Saguru/Kaito. Have fun!

* * *

The rain is coming down in torrents.

It's not the best weather to be flying in, but beggars cannot be choosers. There is no lightning, at least, and Aoko is immensely thankful for the small reprieve.

Pushing her damp fringe out of her eyes, Aoko peers through the viewfinder of her binoculars again. With the minimum amount of light filtering through the stormy grey clouds and the heavy curtain of rain, visibility is pretty much shot to hell. Kaito's blue dot registered on their radar about fifteen minutes ago, and he is bound to come within visuals soon, Aoko on immediate standby for emergencies. A strong gust of wind threatens to rip the hood of her raincoat back, and she pulls in a slow, steadying breath, scanning the skies carefully. Bad weather never fails to put her on edge, but they have both been through worse, and worrying will help no one, least of all Kaito. She catches a flicker of movement amongst the roiling grey out of the corner of her eye, and then she sights the small triangle of white, buffeted by the wind and clearly angling for a landing.

Something isn't right with the way he is flying.

Even taking into account the adverse weather conditions, the hang glider is a touch too unsteady, often listing to the right before wrenching itself back on course. Ruthlessly quashing the niggle of fear in her chest, she switches on their portable guiding light and begins to guide him back to relative safety.

It seems to take forever, then the hang glider pulls into a dive, and Aoko runs forwards as KID crashes into the ground, rolling with the momentum. As she nears, she sees that he isn't wearing his gas mask, and there is something bulky and heavy in his arms.

"Aoko!" KID's cloak is in his arms instead of around his shoulders, spotted in places with pink. Aoko feels the blood in her veins freeze when she glimpses a pale, limp hand resting amongst the swathes of white. "Get him inside!"

The weight is heavier than expected, and Aoko shifts down low to carry most of it over her back and shoulders, hauling him in as KID quickly collapses his glider. "Status?"

"Metal pipe through the thigh, broken ankle and shattered wrist, moderate wound down the side. Possible concussion from blunt trauma to the head." KID hurries to help with part of his weight, the both of them hastening to get the injured into the shelter of the abandoned legislative building that has been serving as their temporary base for the past two weeks. "He wasn't awake for long enough for me to check."

They set him in the designated medical bay, KID undoing the knots that he's put into his cloak and unwrapping it from around the injured young man while Aoko rinses her hands.

"I've stabilized him as best as I can," KID says lowly, a quiet urgency in his voice. "Please, Aoko."

The bleeding is sluggish from what she can see, but the wounds look infected, swollen and purple and angry. KID's hands are trembling on her shoulders, and she takes a deliberate step away, grabbing the water and a pair of scissors. She can either try her best with first aid or reassure KID, but she cannot do both and Aoko will always choose the former. KID strips off his gloves as she cuts away the man's clothing, rinsing his hands before laying out her medical instruments that she will need by her side. She doesn't look up when she douses the wounds generously with the disinfectant, but senses rather than see him flinch on her patient's behalf from the corner of her eye.

"What did this?"

"Gangs." She can hear the distaste in KID's sneer, KID drawing out the sibilant 's' in a hiss. "My guess is they left him out to be the afternoon snack… or as a distraction."

He doesn't leave when she switches on the strongest flashlight that they have, lingering almost out of view like a pale phantom as Aoko sets to work on the worst of the injuries. Once or twice, he attempts to assist, but she orders him out of the way quickly. His work is complete, the fight now her own. She doesn't mention that his hands are shaking too much to be of any practical help to her, or that he hasn't looked away from their patient's face since, and elects to work in silence.

It takes hours, the work slow and delicate. Aoko slumps to the ground in exhaustion when she is done, and runs her hand through KID's messy hair. He's lying on his side and looking completely at ease, but he cannot fool her, and she tips his face towards her to meet his pensive, worried gaze with a steady one of her own.

"Will he live?" He's careful to keep himself from sounding hopeful, expression neutral. Aoko exhales quietly, and covers his hand with her own to keep him from fidgeting with the pencil stub and betraying the lie. His hands have always been his tell, and he smiles weakly, a brief quirk to the corner of his lips before it disappears completely.

"I'm only impersonating a doctor, not a miracle worker." Aoko brushes his damp fringe out of his eyes, leaning down to press a chaste kiss to his cold cheek. "How are you faring?"

"Some cuts and bruises. Nothing as serious that I cannot take care of by myself." He rolls up his sleeves, and shows her his wounds as though a kid with their new badges of honour. Aoko hums, then digs a thumb viciously into the middle of a particularly colourful bruise, only letting go when he jerks in her grip with a loud yelp of pain. "Ahouko! What was that for?!"

"That's for coming in without your mask, bakaito." She plucks the monocle from his face to a quiet grumbled protest from him, and presses it back into his palm. "If anything had happened to you, neither of you would have made it. You deserve more than just a pinch."

"I only have a sore throat! He - I couldn't let him take the risk, even if I… " Kaito looks over to their patient again, and grimaces. "Aoko."

"I know." She draws his hands into her own, and begins rubbing at the cold limbs in hope of coaxing some warmth back into them. It takes a good while, but the tension eventually seeps out of him, and Kaito closes his eyes to drift off to sleep, allowing exhaustion to take him over and trusting her to keep watch over them. Aoko runs fingers through his hair, and laces their hands together.

Beside them, Hakuba sleeps quietly.

::

There aren't any new leads. To be honest, there haven't been any for a couple of months now, so: nothing out of the ordinary. What worries Aoko is that their runs have been coming up drier, and while Kaito still returns with new supplies, it may finally be time to accept that they have unearthed all there is to find and all that is left is to move on. She sets herself to testing the charge of the assorted loose batteries that Kaito returns with, Kaito working on some easy maintenance for their gear, both intent on ignoring the sleeping elephant in the room.

Questions crowd themselves onto her tongue in the working silence, and she rolls each carefully over in her mouth as though a hard boiled sweet, discarding them deliberately. There isn't a clear place to begin, and Kaito doesn't offer her an easy opening. Why? How? Where? And why now? She doubts that Kaito holds the answers to half of the questions that she has, and it is easier to dwell in the assuring silence for now.

None of them have seen Hakuba for years. News about him filter through to them now and then, sure, Kaito always keeping his ear to the ground for the people he considers family, but they've washed their hands clean of each other the day they left him behind in their little settlement - or so they think. His (unplanned, unexpected) reappearance in their life is like a stick in a pond, stirring up murky, cloudy buried feelings that she thought had long been dealt with and forgotten.

Apparently not.

"Do you think we're heading in the wrong direction?" The batteries make a quiet clacking sound as they knock into each other on the ground, Aoko pulling out the dead ones into a pile.

Kaito lifts his head slightly from the handful of glass pebbles he is working with, mouth pulled into a thoughtful frown. There had been a time, near the beginning, when a question like that would have sparked off an explosive argument. It hadn't been easy then, when each word and fear and doubt was like sowing seeds of discord across a fertile field of uncertainty. They had been vicious, mercilessly laying into each other with their words and the intimate knowledge of their weaknesses. Now, years later, they've learned to trust and to depend fully on each other.

In a manner of speaking, their codependence almost stinks of desperation. Almost.

(They're more than that.)

"If we've crossed out all our wrong answers, then what's left is the right one, isn't it?"

"You mean 'once we've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth'," Aoko teases him gently, watching an embarrassed flush steal across his cheeks. "You haven't said that for a while now."

'Oh, shut _up_. You don't have to say it out loud." Kaito rubs the back of his hand over his nose. "It's what he would have said, isn't it? We're _not_ stalling, if that's what you are asking. It's not like we can move him right now."

Hakuba developed a fever sometime in the middle of the night, and while Aoko had patched up the worst of his injuries, it would be at least a while before they can move him safely, what with the terrain and the unpredictable weather out there. There is enough food and water to last them for the short, foreseeable future, but they have been low on medical supplies for some time now. Aoko prays that he doesn't take a turn for the worst.

As she watches, Kaito reaches over with a freshly wet cloth to sponge at Hakuba's neck and under his arms in an attempt to bring down his temperature, running fingers through the other's hair almost reverently with an unreadable expression on his face. Aoko glances at the look in Kaito's eyes, and quickly averts her gaze to give him his privacy, reluctant to trespass.

It'll take them all some getting used to, if Hakuba doesn't die.

If.

It takes a couple of days for the fever to subside, and a few more for him to begin regaining consciousness. In the meantime, they take turns watching over him, and hypothesizing side trips which will never happen, each too worried for the other to be able to leave them alone. Aoko wonders what it says about them both, to be this wary and untrusting of someone that they once knew. There isn't much that Hakuba can do, injured as he is, but words can cut as deeply as the sharpest knife, and Aoko will not leave Kaito undefended. Occasionally, she fancies that Hakuba will wake up to be the same boy that they knew him to be, and that they will pick up where they have last left off, their disappearance over the several long years simply a long dream. Betrayal and time, she reminds herself, lacing fingers together with a hand that is now much larger than her own than in the past. She isn't naive enough to think that he will forgive them because they saved his life.

In this, she is just as much to blame.

Hakuba coughs himself violently awake on a bleak, humid morning, but doesn't actually gain full consciousness until late in the afternoon. Aoko coaxes water into him at regular intervals, and Kaito withdraws himself emotionally from the situation in small increments such that by the time Hakuba comes around for the second time, the both of them are more than sufficiently prepared.

She still freezes when there is a brief flicker of movement beneath his closed eyelids, and by the time Hakuba is squinting blearily up at the ceiling with muddy, unfocused eyes, Kaito has already wiped away whatever sentimentality there is that remains on his face.

" _You_ ," Hakuba rasps, the dazed look immediately replaced by hate, hands scrabbling as he struggles upright before he loses the little colour that he has in his face, and collapses back down onto his back, pale and stiff. In her haste to keep him still, Aoko ends up spilling some water over him, and helps him to sip at some of the liquid to soothe his throat. Hakuba only pushes her hand away, glaring venomously at Kaito, who seem largely unmoved by the sudden display, expression bored.

"Of all the people to be saved by," Hakuba rasps feelingly, Aoko keeping a warning hand on the middle of his chest. " _KID_."

Kaito tips his head to the side inquisitively, a condescending smile on his lips. It doesn't reach his eyes, and following his cue, Aoko, too, keeps her face blank of what thoughts she may be thinking. It's the face they both wear to their job as KID, their so-called poker face, as Kaito's dad would have called it, and it's been a long time since they've had to use with one another in privacy.

Well, they're not alone now. She will have to remember that.

"I wouldn't try to agitate my wounds by being reckless, if I were you," Kaito says pleasantly. "It will be terribly ungrateful of you to undo all the hard work Nakamori's put into keeping your miserable self alive, no?"

Hakuba's gaze flickers over, clearly seeing her for the first time, some of the immediate anger abating. In his eyes, she reads surprise and recognition, and stoically stares back. It isn't over because nothing can be so easy when it comes to them, Hakuba only electing to hold his tongue in front of her out of some misplaced sense of civility. A fight is unavoidable, but if they can delay the inevitable, it will be for the best.

"Give him some painkillers," Kaito continues dismissively, shifting his attention back to the journal that Aoko is a hundred percent sure that he is not reading. "Something that induces sleep, preferably. He's quite an eyesore. He doesn't need to be noisy and irritating on top of being a disruption to our plans."

"Like I'll accept anything from you." Hakuba bites out just as Aoko looks up with a warning glare in Kaito's direction.

Getting the hint, Kaito holds his hands up, palms outwards in an appeasing manner and gets smoothly to his feet. "I wouldn't lie about my condition if I were you. I'll leave him to you, Aoko. I'm going to feed Hope."

"Right… " Aoko watches Hakuba track Kaito's movements with his eyes, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead, muscles still corded and tense beneath her hands.

"You had us believing that you were dead," he says lowly, but not quietly enough that Kaito doesn't hear him. Kaito doesn't falter, but it is a near thing, coming to a stop nearly out of range of their flashlight, half in the light, one foot in the dark.

"Obviously," Kaito's voice is calm, void of any inflections that may give away whatever he is feeling at the moment. "You were wrong."

The silence stretches paper thin between them, then somebody laughs, a quiet huff of air through their nose.

"It might have been better if you did," Hakuba tells the ceiling, and Kaito's shoulders go stiff before he walks off, leaving Aoko alone with their patient in the awkward silence.

Anger boils in the back of her throat, and Aoko pinches her lips tight, clenching her teeth so that none of the words that she wants to say will squeeze past her lips. Instead, she takes Hakuba's temperature, and offers him painkillers and water. He's still staring at the ceiling, starting when she nudges him, bewilderness giving way to embarrassment at the reminder that he isn't alone.

"Thank you," he says, once he's swallowed the pills dry, clearly too aware of how precious water is in their current environment. "For saving my life. I didn't know you've become a doctor."

Aoko pushes the bottle at him again. "Drink," she orders. "You're dehydrated. We're not low on water, if that is your concern. We can spare a bottle or three."

After giving her a long, searching look, Hakuba lifts the bottle to his lips, but still doesn't drink. "Thank you," he says at length, again.

"It isn't Aoko whom you have to thank," Aoko says automatically, jerking her chin at the bottle. " _Drink_. You're far from being out of the woods. Your body needs as much help as it can get - in this case, water and rest."

Meekly, obediently, Hakuba does. Aoko watches him sternly, then settles him back in once he is done, dusting herself off as she gets to her feet. Hakuba still looks a little uncertain, ungrounded around the edges, and in the end, it is what makes Aoko turns back when she, too, is ready to walk away. "In response to your comment earlier, Aoko isn't a doctor. Just enough medical knowledge to scrape by, yes, but not a doctor."

"I see." He clearly doesn't. "May I still call you Aoko?"

Under her steady gaze, Hakuba squirms. Finally, Aoko sighs. "You've always called us by whichever name suits your needs best, haven't you? Why deviate from that?"

Before Hakuba can fully register her words, Aoko turns on her heels and flees. Not because she is a coward, but because if Hakuba says anything more, she doesn't think she can stop herself from yelling at him.

(She is a coward.)

::

Kaito is crooning to Hope when she finds him, body tucked into a dusty niche, beloved dove held aloft before him on his wrist, cooing quietly in the dim light. Aoko makes her way over to them, and sits next to him with her legs folded beneath her, resting back against his knee. Hope is Kaito's eldest, and his only surviving dove from the original flock. The others have long been picked off by natural predators, the remainder succumbing to disease and pollution. Kaito only ever brings her out in their so-called safe houses now, extremely protective over her and mindful of her health. Familiar with her presence, Hope bobs her head, and flutters over to perch on her offered finger, Kaito passing her the bit of bread he's been feeding Hope with so she can do the same.

"We need to go," she murmurs, Kaito shifting into a more comfortable position behind her, hooking a leg around her calf. "As soon as he is able, of course."

"And how long is that going to take?" Petulance colours Kaito's tone, Aoko smiling as Hope pecks the bread from her hand.

"Must you wear that horrible thing?" Aoko shoots back instead, jerking her chin towards the monocle on his face, the clover charm swinging wildly as Kaito lets his head fall back, groaning.

"It's not horrible. It's _charming_." Kaito tsks loudly, a hand coming up to toy with her hair. "You simply lack an eye for aesthetics. Besides, it makes me feel better."

Hope ducks and bobs her head, and Aoko obliges her by stroking gently over her feathered head. "By being Kid, or having your father close?"

"Dunno. A little bit of both, probably. _So troublesome_." He shifts onto his side, curling around her and resting his head near her feet. In this light, his eyes are a mesmerizing indigo. "He's changed."

" _Bakaito_. It's been eight years. Of course he has changed." She flicks him good-naturedly on the forehead, Kaito feigning injury and protesting. "What he said - "

"I don't care." Blunt as always, Kaito shrugs, and rolls over onto his back in the dust. Hope murmurs quietly, and takes off from her finger to perch on his leg instead. Smiling gently, Kaito coos back at her. "I don't regret anything. Leaving, saving him, bringing him here… I've made it impossible for them to not hate me, after all. And honestly? He's probably right."

" _Kaito_."

It's the way that he says it, hurtful words delivered in such a matter-of-fact manner that twists the knife Hakuba's sunk into her heart since his waking, and she grabs for his hand, startling Hope into fluttering her wings. He watches her gently, knowingly, and she doesn't know which is worse - having Hakuba say these things to Kaito, or having Kaito already believing in it without anyone ever telling him.

"It's okay," he murmurs, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand, as though she's the one who needs the reassuring. "It's okay."

Grow up, mature, change - all different words to mean how they've all grown to be strangers to each other, distant, recognisable only by a familiar face.

At least he's not dead before his time, Aoko thinks. It's more than what she can say for others, rows of unmarked graves, a plague over the barren landscape that they walk over every day.

(Over my dead body, she thinks.)

"Stupid." He grunts unhappily at the jostle. "You have Aoko."

"Yeah? But you're a kid. What help is that?" Another push, and she shoves at him with both hands. Hope flies off to scratch at the ground, away from the disturbance just as Kaito digs a knuckle into her side where she is most ticklish. She shrieks, and pins him beneath her to return the favour in full.

"You're one to call Aoko a kid, _KID_!" It's Kaito's turn to shriek, and he immediately tries to squirm away from her. It isn't until they're both weak from laughter and wild eyed that they give up the game, collapsing against each other to catch their breath, Hope watching them cautiously from a safe distance.

"KID is KID," Kaito pants, the narrow space between them hot. "KID's eternal, don't you know?"

" _We're_ eternal, you mean." Aoko declares proudly, raising a fist into the air. They laugh again, the sound echoing off the walls of the building, and Aoko hums when Kaito turns his head to nudge at her cheek with his nose. "We're so stupid."

"Speak for yourself," Kaito says, but the smile he has on takes the sting out of it. "Childish bother."

Aoko scoffs, and taps her knuckles lightly against the side of his head. In this bleak climate, she's chosen to hold onto her childish behaviour as an accessory, even though most of the good and the kindness that she initially had has probably been scraped off of her by their experiences like rough sand to skin. And so what? It's entertaining, when it seems as though the nights wouldn't end, and Kaito still laughs at her antics.

She really doesn't give a damn.

::

Healing is an awfully slow and tedious process. Aoko is patient, Kaito slightly less so, whereas Hakuba is downright frustrated with his progress. He is making a heroic effort in not letting any of the frustration show, however, and Aoko says nothing when he relies on them constantly for… well, everything. Kaito will make the occasional empty threat about leaving Hakuba to the mercies of the elements, but he never says a word whenever he has to help Hakuba to the bathroom, keeping the business brisk and efficient, averting his eyes and holding his tongue to preserve Hakuba's dignity. For his good behaviour, she rewards him with a pinch to his cheek.

With all the spare time on their hands than they know what to do with, Aoko chooses to delve into her medical texts once again than to sit around the sickbay awkwardly. The book is heavy, one of the few they've salvaged from remaining libraries, spine completely broken in and pages yellowing. By now, she has read it enough times to memorise it from cover to cover, and though Kaito has suggested leaving it behind for practical reasons, Aoko has never been able to bear to part with this particular one.

She wonders if Kaito remembers that it's the first book that he's gotten for her. The rusty stains are still smeared over the edge of the pages, back from when she'd been terrified and frantic, certain that Kaito is bleeding to his death behind her. She can still remember the pallor of his face, working in the dim light as the storm raged on outside of their shelter, his blood warm and slick on her hands as he fought to keep breathing, forcing himself to stay awake with her through the pain.

It had been then that she had learned that she wouldn't be his liability, and this same book had taught her that she can stand next to Kaito as his equal, as KID. He hadn't been pleased with her decision, of course, but had eventually capitulated to her logic and sheer tenacity. She had taken up KID's mantle together with him, chasing clues over what is left of their world, and when he stood with the rival gangs, joined the mercenaries, fed lies to their own community, she had stood with him.

Aoko hadn't looked back since.

On the pallet between them, Hakuba shifts, drawing in a fortifying breath to speak.

"Don't." Kaito doesn't look up from where he has his head bowed over the various maps they've drawn and collected over the years, his father's journal open on his lap. The pencil stub spins over his knuckles, and disappears up a sleeve, before he pulls it out to repeat the motion again. "If you're going to waste your breath on stupid questions, I suggest you shut it right now."

" _You_ \- "

"Look, if you have the energy to start an argument with me, you're better off conserving that energy and focusing on getting well. The sooner you get better, the quicker we can be rid of each other. As much as I would like to dump your sorry ass out into the desert, I can't. So." The pencil clacks to the floor, Kaito clicking his tongue in irritation before picking it up, looking down at Hakuba contemptuously. "Try not to be any more of a pest, mm?"

Hakuba's face turns thunderous enough that Aoko wonders if perhaps she should step in to mediate when Hakuba swallows hard, jaw tight, and slumps back onto his makeshift bed, eyes firmly closed. Aoko glances at his tense shoulders, then sends Kaito a disapproving look, to which he spreads his hands at her with a shrug of his shoulders, clearly unbothered. Sighing, Aoko turns another page of her book only for Kaito to get her attention again a few minutes later.

"Just out of curiosity - in your opinion, how long do we have until he is fit for travel? No walking, just travelling."

Aoko glances at Hakuba's bandaged leg. Ever since they staved off the infection, Hakuba has been healing well, although at a glacial pace. "I would say… A week or so, if he can be transported safely. It's his ankle we have to watch, as well as the stitches in his thigh."

Kaito hums thoughtfully, finger stroking absently along his bottom lip before he gets to his feet, gathering up the maps and bringing them over to her. He spreads them out on the ground, smoothing out the creased corners and points at it with a finger. "Look. If we are able to take this route, we should still be able to get there in good time. It goes right by our old safe house - the administrative building, you remember - and also shelters in case the weather doesn't hold." Aoko leans forward as Kaito traces out the route for her with a finger, tapping on marked areas. "The longest stretch without a stopover will be from here, to here, which is about a day and a half's journey. Short trips from here, and here, if we need it." He clasps his hands together. "What do you think?"

Aoko purses her lips together, just as Hakuba decides that he's done feigning temporary deafness, and stares at them incredulously. "You're taking me with you?"

"Would you prefer it if I dumped you out into the rain right now? Hush." Kaito holds up a finger towards Hakuba, still waiting on her reply. He's thought the whole thing out well, although it will likely be a very taxing journey for Hakuba, who is still recovering from his injuries.

Undeterred by Kaito's finger, Hakuba continues onward. "I know you keep tabs on us. You know very well what I plan to do with Pandora. And knowing that, you still - ?"

" _Hush_ ," says Kaito, more firmly this time, a hint of irritation in his voice. "Yes, we know. Cool motive. Be quiet."

"You don't know the extent that I will go to to keep Pandora from falling into the hands of the likes of you - "

"Don't I?" Kaito interrupts him loudly, half twisting back to scowl at him. "You're welcome to try to put a bullet into my head if you want to. In fact, this could be one of your ploys to keep us behind, or getting us to lower our guards for an ambush. Oh, don't look so shocked. I'll even give you the gun if you want. My life for Pandora, isn't it? As so many countless others have already kindly demonstrated for me before you in the past. So - "

Aoko immediately grabs hold of his wrist when his hand moves down to his hip where she knows he keeps a knife hidden. Purple eyes flicker over to her questioningly, Kaito's expression calm as the surface of a still river, before his eyes lower to their hands.

"Besides," he continues, Aoko relieved when he shifts his weight to sit back again, the tension seeping out of his back. "Pandora isn't what you want it to be."

Still more or less stunned by Kaito's words, Hakuba's eyes dart between the both of them, hands fisting into the thick blankets they've spread over him. "There's no evidence," he says tightly.

"None that will change your mind about what you've already decided you want to believe in," Kaito waves a hand airily. "Nevertheless."

"I think it's feasible," Aoko says, switching the topic back to safer grounds. "If you can figure out the logistics of transporting Hakuba, I'll do the packing and the sorting. It's best if we can stock up on painkillers soon."

"Painkillers? Why not just resort to knocking him out with a more primitive method?" Kaito grins, immediately leaping to his feet. "I'm gonna leave it to you, Aoko."

He bounds out, presumably to find a way to affix Hakuba securely onto their cycles for their journey, leaving Hakuba and Aoko to stew in an uncomfortable silence. Aoko sighs, and gathers up the maps that he's left behind. No matter how much she nags, Kaito still likes leaves a mess behind him wherever he goes, leaving her to pick up after him. Well, what are partners for, Aoko muses, before Hakuba coughs quietly.

"Is he - " Hakuba begins, hesitating in a rather uncharacteristic manner, clearly having difficulties putting his thoughts into words. "Was… "

Aoko watches him frown, folding the maps back up except for the ones that she needs.

"Would you?"

"What?"

"Would you try to kill him?"

Aoko feels his gaze linger on her, and busies herself with putting away their things so she wouldn't have to look at him. The silence is thoughtful, Hakuba trying to work himself out, and she doesn't push, allowing him to answer in his own time.

"I don't know," Hakuba says finally, turning back to look at the ceiling. He looks resigned. "I… never expected him to… It's not something that has ever occurred to me, not until he's said it."

"We aren't strangers to having people make use of us for their own gains. Your target is Pandora. Many have done much more and much worse for less." Aoko picks up the pencil he's left behind, and starts to look for her own records of their hideouts. It's been a long while since they've come this way, but if luck holds, perhaps no one has found them yet. "You're very kind, Hakuba."

"And you aren't?" Seeming to realise what he's just said, Hakuba quickly cuts himself off. "Sorry."

The first time she had returned to their community with Kaito, KID had been welcomed with the business end of weapons and open hostility. They didn't make it a secret who KID was, and what KID does, but nobody knew who KID is, and they would very much prefer to keep it this way. In face of all the anger, KID had laughed, had forced their way in and took what they wanted from them, flaunting their efforts and their failures in their faces, and when they had been leaving, Hakuba had caught up with them on the way out.

Aoko still remembers the moment in the middle of their brief tussle when Hakuba realises who exactly it is that he is fighting against, looking as though he had just been stabbed in the chest as Kaito shoves him aside for their escape.

In a way, it was exactly what they did.

He had tried to catch them, on the following jobs they had that involved the community. Each meeting, he came away more desperate than the last, until he had eventually lunged at Kaito openly with a knife, despair and anger in his eyes, nearly nicking him until Kaito had knocked it out of his hands.

"Don't pick up a knife if you don't plan on using it," Kaito had said, before laughing and fleeing with her into the night, leaving Hakuba alone to deal with the betrayal and all the destruction they've left behind.

"I wouldn't call myself kind, exactly," Aoko says eventually. "I know I will kill you if you plan on killing him while his back is turned."

"Being practical?" A wry smile twists Hakuba's lips. "You've gotten better at lying."

"Thank you." Aoko says sincerely. "Is there anything else that you need?"

Hakuba turns solemn again, watching her just as she watches him. "I never understood why you left to do this," he murmurs. "Why you let him persuade you into life as a mercenary. I've given it thought, but nothing makes sense."

"If anyone was doing the persuading, Aoko was the one doing the persuading. Persuading him to take me with him. KID isn't one person, Hakuba. He's both of us."

 _An idea will live forever_ , Kaito had said, brows knitted in intense concentration. _So maybe that's why he went out in that ostentatious getup. To give people something ridiculous to smile about._

 _That's a stupid story to leave behind_ , she'd told him. _Aoko's dad would have never agreed. Even if your dad has lost his senses, Aoko's dad is too sensible for him._

 _KID hurts no one,_ Kaito had said. They had been so naive back then.

"Is it true?"

Lost in her thoughts, Aoko starts slightly when Hakuba speaks again. "What is true?"

"That KID has… " Hakuba licks at his lips nervously, unable to meet her eyes. "Killed."

When the silence has gone on for far too long, Hakuba attempts to reach for her hand. "Aoko, please tell me it's not true. You can't have - you're not a murderer."

"Lie still," Aoko snaps, ordering him back as she shifts out of his reach. "You'll only agitate your injury. Believe in the version that helps you sleep at night. What's done is done. There is no point in telling you what we've done or not done over the period of so many years now. Focus on getting better. You have a taxing journey ahead of you."

Hakuba closes his eyes, devastated, and Aoko leaves to allow him some privacy, not wanting to crowd him with her presence. Even if he presses, no matter his conclusion, Aoko will not offer any further information. Kaito had been the one with the blood on his hands, Aoko the one to dispose of the corpse when all he could do was to shake and retch dryly off to the side. It hadn't been intentional, but Kaito still very much fully blames himself for something that he thinks he could have prevented, Aoko filling in the silence with her chatter when he doesn't talk for days, holding him when the nightmares wake him.

This, she decides, is their shared responsibility.

::

 _Entry #40-37_

 _That man worries me_. _I have never met such a fool in my life before._

 _And yet, there can never be enough fools in the world - there will be room for one more._

 _Nakamori Ginzo_

::

It begins in roughly this order: the end of the world, Pandora, the disappearance of Kuroba Toichi, an innocent question and a stack of letters.

"I think I know where your father is," Kaito had told her, face pale but determined a month after his fifteenth birthday, a dirty journal clamped under one arm. He showed her, and there she had found out that Kuroba Chikage has always known more than she's ever let on.

Kaito doesn't say much for the few days following his outburst, Aoko drawing up a more detailed plan based on the route he's drawn for them. The rain persists into the day of their departure, Kaito staring at the stormy skies for a long moment before shrugging and pulling out their spare raincoat, wrapping Hakuba snugly into it. Neither of them say a word to each other, Hakuba interestingly compliant, and although they keep physical contact with each other as brief as possible, it doesn't escape Aoko that Hakuba has yet to look away from Kaito since he had woken up that morning, simply watching him intently as Kaito tugs on the ends of his coat.

"It's a little small on you, since you have broader shoulders than he does," Kaito muses aloud, stepping back and casting a critical eye over Hakuba to ensure that he's more or less water tight. "Well, whatever. It'll have to do."

It feels good to hit the road again, the powerful engine of the cycle thrumming beneath her. The heavy claustrophobic weight that has been clinging to her shoulders lifts with every breath she takes, the restless itch about staying in one place for too long under her skin easing. Kaito had hitched some sort of makeshift gear onto his cycle so that Hakuba wouldn't have to travel with his leg cramped all the time, even including some sort of safety harness in case Hakuba is unable to hold on to him. Aoko doesn't protest his decision of having Hakuba ride with him, since he's the better driver out of the both of them, and can better compensate for the extra weight and still be able to maneuver the cycle quickly in case of an unexpected sticky situation.

Not that she hopes there will be any, really.

Riding out into the ravaging storm, Aoko braces herself for the strong gusts of wind, and lets its ferocity whip everything away into grey, trusting their coordinators to lead the way.

Here, swallowed up and battered by the storm, the sharp, painful edges of the world softened and blurred by the heavy rain, Aoko can almost find peace. The light from Kaito's cycle next to her is a reassuring, steady presence, keeping pace with each other and signalling whenever there is something they need. Vague impressions of jagged buildings loom in the far distance, occasionally accompanied with something that sounds like a low, rumbling groan carried on the wind. Aoko pays it no heed, only focusing on pressing forward, on the thrum of the engine and the way the cycle bumps as it goes over uneven terrain.

Once, on a day just like this, Aoko had ran, had escaped to the roof of a derelict building, structural integrity be damned. She hadn't expected Kaito to find her within the hour, but she didn't push him away when he stood next to her by the broken railing, looking out with her over the bleary landscape, saying nothing even when the acid rain burns at his exposed skin.

 _Why? Why does it have to be us? Why not somebody else?_ Her hands had been cold in Kaito's own, his hands a warm and solid anchor around hers. _I am only one person, and the world is so frightening and wide. I can't save myself, much less anyone else._

 _You saved me, remember?_ Kaito had reminded her gently, rubbing his thumbs soothingly over the back of her hands.

 _But this is different. This is - Dad won't - If we run and hide, no one will know_. Next to her, Kaito bows his head, and says nothing. KID - the first KID, freshly dead and buried and mourned, an unmarked grave a far way from home. It isn't fair to Kaito, not when everything was still fresh and raw and bleeding, but there was no one else to talk to, and Aoko thinks she will be eaten alive if she remains silent any longer. _We… we don't have to save the world. Let someone else do it, if they want to. Kaito - we're only children. Understand that I want to, but I can't. Aoko can't. It doesn't have to us. It doesn't have to be us._

Kaito had only gathered her close, eyes immeasurably grave and gentle and kind, and held her to him as eternities pass.

 _Okay_ , he said.

It is something of a relief when they finally stop for the day, pulling over at their designated checkpoint, water sluicing off their raincoats as they step out of the rain, Kaito quickly checking for the integrity of their shelter as Aoko helps Hakuba in, his face pale and drawn with pain. Kaito brings their cycle in, and taking one look at Hakuba's face, quickly passes him the painkillers and water which Hakuba takes without complaint, hands trembling.

They take their journey at a slower pace after that, not wanting to stress Hakuba while he is still recovering. The sun rises on the third day of their journey, chasing away tumultuous clouds, taking with them the rain. Aoko is the first to wake, blinking eyes open to a landscape still as ugly and as bleak as when they had last seen it, but wakes Kaito up anyway.

"Look, a rainbow."

Hakuba wakes immediately when they touch him on the shoulder lightly, and neither of them say a word when he spends the entire morning looking at the washed out colours of the rainbow, slowly chewing his way through the breakfast rations they hand him.

They sleep curled up in each other's spaces at night, sharing the heat of their bodies when the temperature drops with the sinking of the sun. Aoko lies between Hakuba and Kaito as a physical buffer, pressing as close to him as she physically dares to, worried that a chill or a cold will worsen his somewhat stable condition. When it comes to being stubborn, Hakuba can be just as mulish as Kaito, and if he is uncomfortable in any way, he never gives voice to it. Kaito sleeps with a knife to hand at night, and draws nonsensical symbols on the back of her hand when he cannot sleep.

The humidity feels much worse when the sun is out, so Aoko takes to braiding her hair and pinning the braid to the crown of her head each and every morning, trying her best to work out the tangles with her fingers. Kaito spots her pinning her hair one morning, still packing away their blankets for them and immediately comes over, wrapping an arm around her waist and pressing his lips affectionately to the exposed nape of her neck, drawing a giggle out of her.

"Stop that," she laughs when he kisses her neck again, but lets him take the pins from her. "Aoko is thinking of cutting her hair again."

"Mm, again?" Kaito's hands are gentle on her scalp. She's always in a rush, and the pins always dig into her whenever she does her own hair. "You've only just grown it back not too long ago. I rather like you with long hair."

"Then you can help me with braiding it every morning." Aoko tests the snugness of the braid, and pulls him down for a chaste kiss on the lips. "It's very troublesome."

"Then allow me to take care of that trouble for you, my lady," Kaito smiles against her cheek, and they break apart, laughing quietly. She knows how much Kaito likes getting his hands into her hair, even if she sometimes find her own hair greasy and disgusting. Sometimes, he tries to braid his own short strands, but it usually doesn't turn out well.

Next to them, Hakuba burrows further beneath the covers, and continues to feign sleep.

Her father's journal keeps her company at night when no one is inclined to talk, each afraid of spilling too much and saying too little. She curls up with the familiar, well-worn book near the small fire Kaito allows them, Kaito often sharpening their knives by the entrance, wrapped in the thick wool of KID's cape until it is time to sleep. Their fathers have each left them something of themselves, respectively, and Aoko's father was an avid journal keeper, diligently penning down the happenings and his thoughts for each and every day. It had taken a while to teach herself the unique code that he writes in for some entries, but it had been very much worth it.

In her memories, her father had always been a large figure in her life. Unbelievably tall, and strong like a tree. Now, she knows that isn't quite accurate, but human memories can be funny like that. He had been a man of few words, often preferring the company of his own thoughts, a brooding expression on his face whenever he thought Aoko wasn't looking. For a man with such large and rough hands, his handwriting was endearingly neat and tiny, although it didn't do much to hide his brute honesty and his loud personality. His colourful vocabulary spilled over even into the written form of his thoughts, and Aoko still giggles whenever she comes across an entry like that, reading it the way she knows her father would say it, occasionally reading it out to Kaito, who will pull a face before taking over with a perfect imitation of her father's voice.

When asked, Kaito only rubbed at his nose, clearly embarrassed with the answer he was about to give. Apparently, being the mischievous kid that he was, he had been on the receiving end of enough of those rants that he has just about memorised how Nakamori Ginzo sounds like when he's pissed, re-enacting the scene at home to his dad when he got home.

"We got into a lot of trouble as kids, then," he had added thoughtfully, scratching at his head. "Don't you remember?"

(Ginzo, yelling at them as they link hands with a crying Hakuba, bleeding from various cuts and scrapes from exploring ruins that they know very well are off limits to them, pushing the pudgy boy behind them to better shield him from Ginzo's angry shouting. Hakuba hadn't been an adventurous kid, but Kaito with his glib tongue and charm had somehow managed to persuade him into scrambling over crumbling bricks and large rocks with them. They had been lucky that none of them had been cut or hurt by all the rusted metal, Ginzo had yelled. Lucky that none of them have fallen to their deaths or crushed under a building that will collapse god-knows-when. Hakuba had only sobbed harder, frightened, his hand crushing hers as Kaito held him and glared daggers at her father.

Later, when Kaito had thought she was busy learning her numbers and her math from her father, he had apologised to Hakuba, all guilty looking with a rough yellow bloom clutched in one hand.

 _I only wanted to show you this_ , Kaito had mumbled, thrusting the ragged flower at the other boy. _I didn't mean to make you cry_.)

Across her, Kaito rudely prods Hakuba with his foot, and begins to rile him into some hand exercises that he can do.

Time probably hasn't added to Hakuba's sense of adventure, Aoko thinks, but some things never really change.

Which is why, when trouble finds them two days past their halfway mark in the form of a gigantic centipede-scorpion cross rearing out of the ground, Aoko takes the initiative to lead it in a chase away from Kaito. They will survive being stuck together for the brief amount of time she will be away, she believes.

Besides, Kaito isn't the only one around that is addicted to thrill and adrenaline.

" _Fight me, you ugly beast._ "

::

Hakuba hasn't stopped clawing at his sides ever since their run in with the creature, and Kaito hisses loudly in pain when fingers scrape none too gently over a still healing wound that licks close to his hip. It's clear that the man is panicking, and Kaito doesn't blame him, considering that Hakuba has likely been attacked by one of those before. Reaching down and prying the hand away from his hip, Kaito pulls up before their shelter in a spray of sand, dismounting and manhandling Hakuba into the relative safety of their shelter. A quick check shows that the structure is still sound, but seeing as he doesn't plan to stick around for longer than three hours as agreed with Aoko before she had left, it will serve its purpose for now.

"Stay close to the entrance," Kaito warns, stalling his cycle for now. Three hours. Whether Aoko returns or not, they will have to move onwards to their safehouse and hopefully meet her there.

"Aoko - " Hakuba gasps, successfully dislodging the mask, pulling in large, panicked gulps of air that has Kaito crossing over to him quickly, forcing the mask back onto his face. " _Stop_ \- "

"The air here isn't clean enough. Keep the mask on your stupid face." Kaito snaps, securing it back on, slapping away Hakuba's hand when he tries to stop him. "Have you forgotten that you're asthmatic? That thing will be dealt with. _Calm down_."

" _It'll kill her._ "

"No, it won't."

" _You don't know that_!"

Hakuba's eyes are wide, quietly gasping as though he isn't getting enough air, and Kaito realises that he's going into some sort of attack. Immediately, he gets down on his knees before him, holding on to his one good hand with the other rubbing at his shoulder and back.

"Listen," Kaito keeps his voice low, trying his best to project a calmness he does not feel. He's never any good in this sort of situations. "I need you to breathe. Slowly. You need to slow down. Can you do that?" At Hakuba's near frantic shake of his head, he holds the other's hand to his own chest, splaying his palm over his own heart and keeping it there. "It's okay. Match my pace. Slowly. Feel this?" He draws in a deep breath, and lets it back out slowly, forcing Hakuba to look at him. "Follow this."

It takes a long while, Kaito nearly afraid that he would have to knock Hakuba out just to stay his panic (remembering just in time that it is likely he still has a concussion and he shouldn't be hitting him on the head), but eventually the trembling stops, and familiar anger seeps back into his brown eyes. Wordlessly, Kaito lets the hand drop.

Hakuba's anger is a near tangible thing, Kaito staring steadily back at the hot burn in his eyes, not moving when one of the man's hands clenches into a fist.

"Go on, then," he says.

Across from him, Hakuba draws in a sharp, angry breath, opening his mouth as though to speak, before he closes it again with a click of teeth, looking away. Patiently, Kaito waits, but when nothing is forthcoming, he sighs and gets smoothly to his feet.

When he had first come across the familiar tuft of ash-blonde hair, nearly grey and buried beneath all the dirt and rubble, he had been ready to dismiss it as another casualty of circumstance, a stranger he has no obligation to care about in any way. He had went looking anyway, out of curiosity, and now that he is thinking about it, luck, probably. Finding Hakuba lying unconscious and bleeding is not an experience he would ever like to repeat, heart jackhammering as he searches frantically for a pulse, terror barely alleviating when he finds only a weak, barely there fluttering under the blonde's pale skin. He didn't dare - didn't allow himself to think of the possibilities of what those injuries may mean for Hakuba, launching them both out into the storm and hoping that he wasn't too late. His own safety hadn't been a concern to him, drowned out by his need to get Hakuba to help and safety, only aware of how limp and heavy and cold Hakuba's body is in his arms.

Aoko hadn't been pleased, obviously, but the near paralyzing relief that he had felt upon knowing that Hakuba might just make it after all had more than made up for it.

For the next few days, he'd been antsy, worrying about what he should say when Hakuba wakes, on if there is something that he should do, reparations to be made. Then, Hakuba had opened his eyes, had woken up fine, and Kaito realizes that he is nothing but a villain in his eyes.

That's okay. Kaito has spent years playing the role of a heartless villain, perfecting the act until he very nearly believes in it himself, a mask familiar and well-worn around the edges. A little while longer wouldn't hurt.

He had reckoned that he would be saving the both of them from heartache. Let Hakuba believe in whatever he wants to. It's all well and settled between them by now, this relationship that they have, Hakuba out of ignorance, and Kaito out of deceit. No point in stirring up all the mud now, when Hakuba needs all the rest that he can get, and Kaito with a looming deadline.

What is the point in telling him that all the raids they've done to their own community was a front? That they'd been trying to protect them, striking before the other gangs could, chasing them out of one place into another that can hopefully be safer and more permanent than the last? That when there'd been a job targeting them, KID had always been the first to bid, eliminating all other threats at the starting line?

Kaito doesn't need redemption. Redemption isn't for people for him.

Oven the barren landscape, there is no movement on the horizon beneath the scorching sun. Kaito still stares out at it, because anything is better than looking at Hakuba when he has that sad little expression on his face, like he'd been hoping for something different from him.

 _It isn't your father out there_ , he thinks tiredly. _You've already lost both by the time everyone else found you._

It would be unfair to take more from him, and yet, despite his best intentions, they already have.

None of them speak to each other again for the next three hours.

::

Kaito is checking all the straps on his cycle, ready to make a move onwards to their safehouse without Aoko when Hakuba finally stirs from his stupor.

"You're leaving her behind," Hakuba accuses flatly. He doesn't even sound angry anymore, just tired, resigned. Kaito tugs on the strap securing their luggage, and turns to assist Hakuba back into his seat on the vehicle.

"Is there a point in waiting? I know what I have to do, and she knows what she has to do." Hakuba doesn't fight him when he deposits him onto the cycle, moving to strap him in as well. "Do you want any water before we set off?"

Hakuba shakes his head, though Kaito presses the bottle of water into his hand either way. "I'm beginning to think that I don't know you at all."

Kaito doesn't grace him with an answer, mounting the cycle himself and pulling off away towards the direction of their safehouse. Aoko will meet them there, surely. He's seen firsthand the things that she can do with knives, much less a gun and the equipment that she has with her right now. Like Hakuba, he doesn't like leaving Aoko behind, but he has to be practical. They all have to. They've promised each other that they wouldn't let something like each other's deaths stop them, forging ahead even if it means having to push on alone (if it means living alone).

 _We'll always find each other, eventually_.

They're the first to reach their safehouse, and Kaito sets himself to settling Hakuba in, rummaging into their old supplies, pleased to find that most are still in good condition. There isn't much else left to do other after that than to wait after that, so Kaito entertains himself by fashioning a sort of ankle brace for Hakuba, and chirping to Hope when the light is too low for him to work without damaging his eyesight. At this point, Hakuba probably hasn't healed enough for him to attempt to walk on his own, but if there ever is a situation that Hakuba needs to leave and neither Kaito nor Aoko are able to help him, he wants to provide him with at least that much of a chance at escape.

Hakuba flinches when Kaito lies down next to him at night, going tense and stiff as a board when Kaito wraps an arm around the other's waist to bring him closer in order to preserve body heat. It's awkward without Aoko acting as a buffer in between them. Kaito rests his forehead against Hakuba's shoulder, firmly shutting his eyes against the blonde's stuttering breathing. Curled up like this with him, Kaito realizes that Hakuba has half an inch of height on him, the other having grown taller in their long absence. Hakuba has always been something of a runt when he was younger, Kaito remembering him as a pale, thin excuse of a boy stumbling after behind both himself and Aoko. There's no traces of the boy left in this man before him, and Kaito hums to himself thoughtfully. Would he have to tilt his head back to look at him when Hakuba is able to stand on his own two feet? The thought amuses him, and Kaito snickers quietly into Hakuba's neck. That night, he dreams of wild flowers, and a large flock of doves.

Aoko roars up to the safehouse early next morning, spraying Kaito and his breakfast wafer with sand as she brakes. Kaito spits out the rough grains in disgust as Aoko dismounts, running and tackling him into an enthusiastic hug, nearly throwing him backwards onto the ground. Hakuba only watches with bright eyes as she kisses him squarely on the mouth, but quickly attempts to scoot away when Aoko reaches for him next.

In answer, Aoko only laughs, and plants a wet kiss on his cheek, Hakuba immediately blushing tomato red.

"Sorry about the hold up. Aoko's back now. Did you worry? I'm sorry." Aoko tousles Hakuba's hair, Kaito hiding a smirk behind his palm as the blonde splutters. He doesn't think that Hakuba will take very well to being petted on the head, now that the both of them are older, especially when he knows the other has been harbouring some sort of crush on Aoko since even before this KID issue. "Did I set us back? I feel so much better now."

"Not by much," Kaito says, dusting off his wafer. Hakuba touches fingers to his cheek where Aoko had kissed him, and angles himself away from them. "We're in good time, actually."

"Good." Aoko stretches, arching back slightly, catlike. "Do we still have a change of clothes here? I've got bug blood all over myself."

Kaito jabs his thumb over his shoulder in answer. "You're welcome to it if you can still fit yourself in them. We're going to have to stay here for a bit longer."

"Why?"

"Because," Kaito says. "We're low on potable water."

Aoko grimaces at the news.

"Oh."

::

It is nightfall by the time a large, blue crystal tumbles from Kaito's trembling hand into her own, his lips pressed tightly together, skin an ash grey. He sways, and all but collapses into Aoko's arms. Aoko quickly catches him and lays him down on his back, Kaito's taking shallow, rapid breaths through his mouth. The thin clothes he is wearing is soaked through with sweat, Kaito trembling violently as she strips him quickly. She's aware of Hakuba hovering behind her over her shoulder, but she doesn't have any attention to spare for him, squeezing Kaito's freezing hand in worry, the magician mumbling something incoherent at her in response.

"Can I help?" Hakuba eventually manages, an odd strangled quality to his voice.

Aoko considers how pale Hakuba looks, then pushes the towel into his hands. "If you can wipe him down, I'm going to get him dry clothes."

Hakuba clutches at the terry cloth, terrified, but nods gamely enough. "I can do that."

She leaves him to the task, trusting that Hakuba wouldn't try to hurt Kaito when he is this vulnerable. It's a gamble, but she trusts in her own instincts. Spending time away had helped clear her mind some, most of her anxiety worked off in the fight with that bug and it's subsequent offspring, and, well, it gave her some space to think, and thinking means that Aoko has a _plan_. There is a long moment where Hakuba does nothing but to stare at Kaito's naked body, the magician sending her looks of confusion and betrayal from where he is lying, twitching when Hakuba suddenly swipes the towel across his front, the blonde unsuccessfully trying his best not to oogle.

Between the both of them, they make short of work of getting Kaito dressed again in warmer, dryer clothes. Aoko drags Kaito over to the fire to warm up, resting his head on her lap, running fingers through sweat damp hair in worry.

"Bright." Kaito croaks, squeezing his eyes shut, and Aoko hurriedly ties a makeshift blindfold around his eyes. Hakuba drags himself carefully closer, wary, cautious - but curious. At the sound of quiet scuffling against the floor, Kaito half turns his head towards him in query, giving up the movement halfway with a groan.

"He'll be fine," Aoko replies in answer to Hakuba's unspoken question, poorly masked worry in his eyes. "He just needs rest."

"I've never seen anything like that," murmurs Hakuba softly. "What I mean is that it never looks like that when Koizumi does it. The process doesn't have her looking… " Here, his gaze drifts back to the magician in her arms. "Half dead."

"That's because Akako is a witch. Everything that Kaito knows is self taught.." Aoko smoothes his fringe back from his forehead, massaging gentle circles into his temples with her thumbs. "Magic is intrinsically linked with the user's life force, and Kaito lacks the kind of control and fitnesse that Akako has."

Wisely, Hakuba chooses not to remark on it, only looking grave as he considers Kaito's sleeping form.

"May I?" He asks eventually, nodding his head towards the drawstring bag by her side. At her terse nod, he reverently undoes the knot on it, rough crystal tumbling out onto his palm, gently pulsing with a soft blue glow in the dim light. Hakuba turns it over in his hands, treating it as though it were terribly fragile. In the hushed silence, they can both hear the crystal's low hum, crystallized magic vibrating on a frequency that she can feel on her skin, a low ache that sets deep into her teeth. Kaito, despite being sensitive to magic, doesn't wake. Hakuba lets out a shaky breath as he holds it up to the firelight, blue catching bright orange and reflecting it against the grey walls.

"Pretty, isn't it?" Kaito had once likened the experience of creating a purification crystal to pulling teeth. "Pandora, too, looks something like this."

Hakuba's gaze snaps up immediately. "You've found it?"

"Not yet, but we know that Pandora isn't that miracle rock that everyone wants it to be. It's just a piece of crystallized magic, just like all our purification crystals, if different."

"You can't know that."

Aoko laughs, and it isn't a pleasant sound.

"Why not?"

::

By piecing together Ginzo's and Toichi's journal, Aoko and Kaito eventually figured out that Kaito's father hadn't so much as went after Pandora than set out to fix the mistake he made in the first place by creating it. With his last breath, Ginzo had clasped onto Kaito's hands, entrusting the destruction and the subsequent fixing of the mistake to him. There isn't much explanation on how Pandora is made, Toichi himself either refusing to elaborate, or also in the dark about how it came to be.

"That's ridiculous." Hakuba words are harsh, but even he sounds uncertain of himself. "That can't be true."

Aoko stirs slightly from where she is lying curled up around Kaito, pressing closer to him in the weak morning sunlight, whatever there is of it that filters through the thick smog and heavy clouds.

"It can't be true," Hakuba repeats numbly, softer than before. Tired from explaining the general idea to Hakuba through the night, Aoko doesn't answer, and chases her exhaustion down into sleep.

Let him draw his own conclusions, she thinks. They've made theirs, and now Hakuba must make his.

Eventually, inevitably, everything will come to an end.

::

Hope is still and cold on the morning that Kaito wakes up, white wings spread out across the concrete ground. Carefully, gently, Kaito gathers her still body into his hands, eyes clouded over from pain and exhaustion, taking the news with a sort of stoic resignation. Aoko doesn't offer him empty words of consolation, and cries on his shoulder when his eyes remain dry. Kaito leans against her with one arm around her shoulders as he smooths down Hope's feathers with his fingers, cradling her still body in his hands, and doesn't speak.

Hakuba doesn't say a thing, remaining silent as they grief, but makes as if to get up when Kaito does, Kaito holding up a hand to stay him and nodding in acceptance of his silent, offered concern.

Aoko brushes the tears from her cheeks, but can't seem to stop the great shuddering gasps, Kaito shrugging on his heavy duty coat, still looking rather drawn.

"I know where to bury her," he says.

It takes them half a day to get to a long miserable stretch of barren land with nothing but sand and broken up pieces of rock that looks just like any other places they've already been to. Kaito kills the engine of his cycle, approaching a rusty metal stick firmly wedged in the ground, supported by a mount of haphazardly stacked rocks, a dirty handkerchief tied to the stick and flapping pathetically in the wind. Aoko helps Hakuba off the cycle, Hakuba doing his best to hobble around on a makeshift crutch and his ankle brace, looking around the area in bewilderment. Patiently, she guides him to stand next to Kaito, her partner's head bowed in silence before the grave they've made a long time ago.

Her eyes are still swollen from crying, but Aoko scrubs the back of her hand over her face and musters a smile for the man whom they've buried here years ago.

"Hello, Lupin," she greets quietly.

They leave Hakuba sitting in front of Lupin's grave when they make one for Hope. The ground is hard and ungiving, and it takes a good while before they manage to make a hole deep enough for her. Kaito digs into his pocket for a glass marble which he places carefully in together with Hope, fingers brushing against her breast feathers one last time before they cover her up with powdery earth and rocks. While Kaito tries to pick out the best rocks in the vicinity to mark Hope's grave with, Aoko wanders back over to sit next to Hakuba, stretching her legs out before her and crossing them at the ankles.

"This is Hakuba," she says conversationally to the grave, ignoring Hakuba's surprised start next to her. "The childhood friend we keep telling you about, if you remember. I'm sure you do, even if you pretend that you don't. We're sorry that it's been a long time since we've come this way… in fact, we're hoping to make it in time for the volley comet. Based on the journals, we _think_ we know where Pandora is. Well, I say that, but we do mean that by trial and error we've narrowed down the place in which we think Pandora is. Hakuba's here to stop us. I'm sure you will be pleased, knowing that. You've always liked drama." Here, she trails off in remembrance, a fond smile touching her lips. Next to her, Hakuba shifts uncomfortably, then nods at the grave.

"Hello," Hakuba mumbles awkwardly. "Pleased to meet you."

There's the quiet crunching of sand and gravel as Kaito joins them, a hand on his hip as he considers them all. "You're speaking to Arsene Lupin the Third," he informs Hakuba, tipping his chin towards the rocks. "I think you two would have disliked each other, if you've ever met him back when he was alive."

Both their friend and their enemy, Lupin had been a name as big as KID in the world that they run in, and had been someone they could have called a friend. He had run across them when they were still terribly green, and they had apparently been an endless source of amusement (and worry) when he had realised that they were serious in what they were doing. After the third time of running into each other or so, he had more or less taken them under his wing and shown them the ropes until they got the hang of it, going as far as to share with them the network of contacts that he had. It didn't mean that they didn't go for each other's throats when there a conflict of interests; namely when they had to tangle with each other on the same job, but it had never been personal. Lupin had been their mentor, their friend, and for Aoko, he'd been the first person she had failed to save, dying from a septic gut wound when they've come across him too late.

Hakuba turns back to the grave with a slight frown, brow furrowing. "A criminal."

"We're not exactly saints, are we?" Kaito laughs without humour. "Everyone is only trying to survive in a way they best know how. There's no crime in that."

The group falls silent, each of them lost in their own thoughts. For her part, Aoko gives prayers to everything that they were made to leave behind, asking for strength and safety for the journey ahead.

 _If none of us return, we still thank you for everything that you have done for us._

Kaito and Hakuba are waiting for her when she looks up again, Aoko clearing her throat as she gets to her feet, dusting the sand off. Kaito reaches out to rest a hand against the nearest rock before him, a solemn look on his face. "So that's the gist of it, Lupin. Take good care of Hope, will you? You're each other's favourites, you should get along pretty well wherever you are now."

"Wish us luck."

Because Kaito is a stubborn, stupid specimen of a patient, he urges them back onto the road barely a few days after waking. Aoko glares at his back for playing down the persistent headache that she knows he has, making him promise to sign for a stop rest if it ever gets too bad. Knowing Kaito, he probably never will, so Aoko settles for thinking up ridiculous insults at him. The road stretches on endlessly ahead, and perhaps she should be feeling at least a little bit victorious about being this close to their goal, their endpoint in sight, but there is only bone deep weariness and a dogged determination to carry everything through to the end. Ahead, Kaito's cycle kicks up dust and grit, Aoko just a few paces away from his as they roar through the desert, Hakuba uncharacteristically quiet, barely acknowledging them these days, lost in his own thoughts as he is.

It makes her feel uneasy, losing Hope, the last thing that they have tying their past to them. Aoko would say that it is an ill omen, but as Kaito will only laugh at her, she chooses to keep the thought to herself. Maybe when this is all over, she will write everything into a book and pass it on to her future children, life permitting. It is a pity that she does not have the talent for drawing the way her father does, his journal entries often accompanied with the tenderest little sketches. What will they remember, looking back years from now? The search, the snatches of joy amidst the crippling grief, the guilt?

The skies yawn wide overhead, and doesn't hold the answer that she is looking for.

::

"This is it?"

After circling the crumbling blocks for the fifth time on foot, Aoko is beginning to worry about Hakuba's ability to keep up with them. Hakuba's expression is pinched in pain, skin clammy to the touch even though he shakes his head when she touches a hand to his shoulder in question. Kaito barely pauses in his steps, only sparing them a fleeting backward glance before pointing to a still standing wall of what used to be a tiny building, a tangle of rubble and steel lying behind it.

Hakuba slumps against the low wall with a groan, closing his eyes as Aoko rummages for their painkillers. Kaito is already walking away, hand tapping at his thigh in a subconscious habit that he has whenever he is deep in thought, looking up at the skeletons of clearly unstable buildings before meandering off into another direction. Aoko watches him go as she presses the pill into Hakuba's palm, the man taking it dry immediately.

"Pandora?"

"Don't know," Aoko answers honestly, passing him water anyway. Kaito had stopped them near the centre of the ruined city, and hadn't offered any of them an explanation before walking them in circles, clearly searching for something. Any attempts at asking had been easily brushed aside, Kaito only shushing her distractedly, and so Aoko had stuck to looking out for gangs, although it doesn't seem that anyone will be able to stay here for long safely with the state most of the buildings are in. "Are you alright?"

Hakuba nods, still looking sick, taking a swig from her bottle. "I'll be fine."

"Do yourself a favour and don't lie to your not-doctor." Aoko flicks him lightly on the forehead, Hakuba flinching before rubbing at the red mark. "Speak up if there is anything that you need. It's dangerous here."

"Being with the both of you is a danger in itself," Hakuba replies wryly. "Does he not know what he is looking for?"

"Getting familiar, are we?" A smile tugs at Aoko's lips, and she lets it, sitting down beside him. In the distance, Kaito walks up and down what seems to be a wide, empty street, arms outstretched to either side of him. "Who knows?"

As they watch, Kaito pauses in a wide junction, a large empty space where two wide streets meet and intersect, turning slowly on the spot. Cupping his hands around his mouth, Aoko frowns as Kaito begins to shout, voice echoing off the remaining walls of the building, quickly caught and swallowed by the emptiness around.

"Magic," Hakuba says suddenly. "He's using magic."

It doesn't look much like magic to her than Kaito fooling around. He repeats the action a few times, cocking his head and appearing to be listening intently, before suddenly turning and jogging away towards one of the buildings, signing for Aoko to watch and to stay put.

"Are you sensitive?" Aoko asks as he disappears into the dark mouth of one. She hopes he doesn't try anything funny without her. The building looks like it could fall over with just a sneeze.

"Sensitive? What do you mean?" Hakuba seems just as apprehensive as she is about Kaito traipsing into an unknown, abandoned building. "I'm asthmatic, as you know."

"No, not your asthma. Sensitive to magic, like Kaito is. In the books, there are people who are able to sense magic when it is present as a physical sensation. Aoko isn't, so Aoko doesn't know when he is using magic, unless he is doing so actively. Are you?"

"No. I've never felt any different when there is passive magic around me. It is just… " Hakuba pauses, licking his lips nervously. "Kuroba seems to be working systematically in what he is doing. Ever since we've arrived, he's been narrowing down onto a specific area, which is why he's been walking around so much. I imagine what he is looking for is very evasive. Magic may also explain his odd actions - Koizumi used to dance when she is working for a spell. Of course, I may be wrong."

Aoko's reply is rudely interrupted by a slow, deep rumbling, the ground trembling beneath them before a large part of an outer building crumbles off, disintegrating into dust and pieces of broken glass, a large plume of dust slowly rising up into the air from that direction, ground shaking as the impact hits. She is up on her feet before she knows it, Hakuba's arm shooting out to catch her by the wrist.

"Don't," Hakuba says tightly. "Don't rush in. It might not be over yet. Unsettled debris is dangerous. Don't you trust him?"

He doesn't let go, not even when Aoko tugs hard at his grip. "I _know_ , I just want - God knows what he's done this time."

It takes far too long for the cloud of debris and dust to settle, Hakuba coughing when some of it makes its way over to them on the wind. Kaito eventually emerges, hair powdery white with the dust, looking pleased with himself.

"Violence solves all our problems 100%," Kaito dusts his hands off gleefully. "I didn't know a building can be an anchor. Do you want to watch?"

He brings them both to the perimeters of the empty junction, Hakuba looking around quizzically for what he is supposed to be seeing when Kaito raises both hands, and claps them together loudly before him.

The resulting sound is nearly a clap of thunder in Aoko's ears, who shrieks and grabs onto Hakuba who grabs on to her. Now, she feels it, a slow but building pressure around them, raising the hairs on her arms as Kaito clenches his fists and slowly draws them apart, as though ripping something unseen. Beside her, Hakuba gasps as the scene before them ripples, and buckles abruptly, crumpling inwards and dispersing into roiling, thick cold fog around their feet. There's the scent of something sharp and clean in the air, and Kaito turns to her, sweat beading on his forehead but grinning widely.

"Dad's magic," he says proudly by way of explanation. "He left this. To hide Pandora."

Aoko can only gape as a sunken amphitheatre yawns dark and wide before them, a still pool of water pooling at the bottle, reflecting the grey of the sky back up to them. If she had been standing a step further to the front, she would have fallen down onto the first steep step downwards.

"But we… we walked over it so many times!" Aoko stutters, Kaito pacing the perimeter and hopping down lightly onto the first step.

"'Round and round we go'," Kaito quotes. "I never thought that he would be so literal."

"But how?" Hakuba sounds shaky, and Aoko quickly catches hold of him when his legs give out beneath him. "There was no sign of anything having been there."

"The lack of anything indicates that there probably is something here," Kaito explains, still hopping downwards, leaving Aoko with Hakuba on the top step. "It's a bit of a giveaway when he is trying so hard to make it seem as though nothing's here. I had thought it odd when we've first arrived. His magic tastes like water, but it's obvious when I know what I'm looking for."

" _Kaito_ \- " Aoko doesn't get the warning out quickly enough when Kaito jumps feet first into the puddle of deceptively clear water. She's expecting a scream, a chemical hiss as acid eats away at his shoes and then flesh and skin, but Kaito only continues downward, sending ripples across the still surface. Hakuba's knuckles are white, the man sitting up straight and tense next to her.

"It's okay," Kaito calls back eventually, voice echoing hollowly. "But you probably shouldn't come down here. Tastes like… more water."

Heaving a sigh of relief, heart still pounding away in her ribcage, Aoko slumps against Hakuba. "One day he will be the death of me. He means more magic." To Kaito, she cups her hand around her mouth, and calls. "Do you need help?"

"If you start seeing a lot of bubbles on the surface, it might be a good idea to pull me out," comes the cheeky reply. The water reaches up to his armpits, and Kaito splashes around for a bit before diving down into it. Aoko can't help but wonder how deep the amphitheatre is. It is hard to judge, the reflection of the sky on the water obscuring its depth. Has it always been here, or did Toichi create it? Harmless, or a trap? She trusts Kaito's instincts, however, and merely leans forward to watch.

If she were to ever step foot in it, it would probably burn her the way real acid would.

"Is he - " Hakuba starts, and stops again, swallowing dryly. "So reckless."

"I will definitely say so." Aoko grins despite herself, twirling a stray strand of hair around her finger. "So, Hakuba. Have you made a decision on what exactly you want to do with the knife you've stolen from us yet?"

Hakuba flushes a bright red, caught. He doesn't deny it, which is very telling, and Aoko smiles slyly at him.

"You knew."

"You weren't being particularly sneaky. Aoko is sure Kaito doesn't know, though."

"I see."

There is silence as a blue glow begins to emanate from the bottom of the amphitheatre. A flash, a sudden cold snap, then Kaito is wading back up the steps shaking water vigorously from his hair. Her heart leaps when she sees that there is something in his hand.

"I don't know why I didn't think to strip before going in," he complains loudly. "Here, have at it."

For something apparently so important and so lusted for, Pandora is by and large mundane looking and unimpressive. Aoko hefts it in her hands, words failing her for the moment.

"It looks like rubble," she says at last. And it does, a large piece of blue-grey unassuming rock that could have come from any collapsed building or ruin. Parts of it turn translucent when she faces it to the light, although there is no difference in texture when she rubs her thumb over it. Hakuba leans over her shoulder for a look, and cleverly, she hands it back to Kaito. "Is it… breathing?"

Kaito takes it back gravely, scraping a fingernail over the rough surface. "Pulsing, I think. I'm surprised no one's found it before us, considering how open a location this is. But dad's always been tricky."

He secreted it away into one of the pockets on his person after that, the stone a noticeable bulge underneath his coat. For the rest of the day, Aoko makes camp while Kaito sets up surveillance spells in the area, rigging them to alert him when there is an intruder. It isn't the best location, but then Kaito uncovers the loaded anchors his father had used for a spell as large scale as his illusion, and quickly adapts it into isolating their camping area for purification, so they may as well stay here. Although Aoko doesn't say it, she feels relieved, tired of all the running and the hiding. Apparently Kaito thinks so as well, for halfway through munching on his tasteless wafer, he pauses, and turns to Aoko.

"Shall we face them on our own grounds?"

"What if we lose?" Aoko doesn't doubt that Snake will come running. The man is persistent, dogged, and it is only a matter of time until they catch up with one another. They've spent years, ages, dodging and hiding and keeping low to the ground while the gangs wiped each other out, taking care never to stay too long in a certain place. The last time they had met was more than a year ago, and Kaito had come so dangerously close to dying. "We have what they want now."

"Does it make a difference? They're murderers. They've always wanted us dead anyway." Kaito toys with a switchblade, frowning as he presses a thumb to the rusted edge. "This is no good."

They could at least make it out with a flash and a bang, if nothing else. Perhaps it is a rather fatalistic way of looking at things, but ultimately, they are all on the losing end - Pandora or no Pandora.

"So we bring the fight to them."

"That's what I was thinking, yes."

Aoko watches him try to scrape the rust off with a piece of stone, then leans in close to him. "And what about him?"

The loud scraping of the knife is loud in the quiet, the nest of blankets that is Hakuba near the wall shifting around as he sleeps. Aoko doesn't need to clarify who exactly it is that she is speaking about, one hand on Kaito's knee.

"I suppose we could stow him somewhere safe until it blows over?" Kaito peers over his shoulder at the bundle of blankets. "It would suck if he died because Snake thinks he's one of us. A complete waste of our resources bringing him back, too."

There's a longing look in Kaito's dark eyes that she dares not point out, a sort of wistfulness to his soft expression as he considers Hakuba. There is no way of knowing whether there will be a safe place to leave Hakuba in, no idea if he will be living out the rest of his life alone, without them, or if he will ever find a new community to call his home. They're both reluctant to see harm come to him just as they are with parting with him, and Aoko sighs heavily, shifting to lie down with her head in Kaito's lap, pushing his hands away to make space for herself.

"He's one of us, isn't he?" Aoko mumbles into his thigh as Kaito gently combs fingers through her hair. "Let him stay."

There's a faraway expression on Kaito's face, her partner not looking at her as he brushes the back of his fingers fondly over her cheek, sighing. "If possible, I never wanted to involve him at all."

Stupid Kaito, she thinks. None of them did.

::

Kaito doesn't blink when Aoko drags her sledgehammer over to him, their cycles parked somewhere within quick reach, and only tosses Pandora to her with a 'do whatever you like' expression. She spends the afternoon sweating, hammering away at Pandora to no avail, the stone not cracking even when the muscles in her arms ache. She does, however, attract a curious audience.

Hakuba stays within the cool shadows of the building, back to the wall, hands worrying the thin blanket he has draped around his shoulders. He's got a new wrist brace on, and Aoko smirks to herself. Even over the distance between them, she can sense his keen attention, brown eyes glittering from within the shade. Aoko lets the heavy end of the sledgehammer fall against the ground for a moment, leaning against it for a breather as she stretches out her arms, wiping sweat out of her eyes with a hand. Hakuba twitches when she juts her chin at him in question, but leaves the cool shade for long enough to approach her nervously.

"May I speak with you?"

She takes in the way his eyes linger on her, the way he never seems to be able to look away for too long, and nods, indicating with her head for him to walk with her while whistling for Kaito to takeover for a while. Hakuba slips his arm through hers obediently when she offers him her elbow, and follows when she leads him over to cool shade away from the building and Kaito's curious ears. She's aware of her own disheveled appearance, of the way Hakuba's gaze traces her exposed neckline, and wonders if Kaito's watching. "What is that busy mind of yours thinking about now?"

Hakuba laughs, softly. It isn't an unpleasant sound. "Nothing much," he admits at length, choosing his words very carefully. "Just a little on how wrong we've all been."

He lets go of her then, maneuvering until they are facing each other properly, Aoko keeping a hand on his waist in case he loses his balance, curious as to what he has to say to her, the expression on his face unusually serious.

"Aoko," Hakuba takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry."

Curious, how two words can mean so much and yet mean nothing at all. Aoko doesn't look away, not wanting Hakuba to take anything as a sign of rejection on her end, stroking her thumb over the curve of his waist. "I accept your apology."

"You do?" Hakuba sways on his feet, looking immensely relieved, eyes going wide. "You really do?"

"Is there a reason why I should not? Aoko is hard pressed to find one." She steadies Hakuba, before looking meaningfully back towards the way they had come from. "What about Kaito?"

"Kaito?" Here, Hakuba grimaces. "I - I will, of course. Eventually."

He frowns, and Aoko touches his face lightly so that he will focus on her again instead of on the thoughts knocking about inside his head. "Do you find it difficult talking to him?"

The long silence is more than answer enough, and Hakuba looks away in defeat, hands curling into fists.

"So you can't forgive him."

"Logically, I have." He flinches when she gently uncurls his hands from the tightly clenched fists they are in. "But the words... They won't come out."

"You do know that it is entirely in your right if you choose to hate us?"

"Obviously." Hakuba doesn't mince his words, and Aoko rolls her eyes with a fond smile. "I still firmly believe that whatever you both did - some of it, at least - is wrong. But if I do choose to hate you - then what will I have left? When everyone else believed that you were dead, I didn't. _Couldn't_. Not unless I saw your dead bodies for myself... so I left, because I wanted to look for the answers myself. You've made it very difficult for me, did you know that? Hardly a trace. I was near to giving up myself - Aoko?"

"I'm alright." Aoko shakes her head, dashing her tears away with the back of her hand as Hakuba wobbles closer to her in worry. "It's okay. I'm alright. Just - it's been very long. I _am_ sorry for making you feel this way. If you are willing, there is so much to tell you. I can't apologise now, but later, when we can work to right everything that we have done wrong... will you hear me out?"

"Of course I will," he promises, nodding.

They're both interrupted by a loud, reverberating sound ringing through the area, a low sounding gong that settles uncomfortably into her bones, and then Kaito shouts. Aoko's eyes goes wide, Hakuba staring at her with undisguised panic. "Go," he whispers, Aoko taking off without further encouragement.

Kaito's lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of a wall when she gets there, sledgehammer lying not too far from him. Aoko is wary for snipers or ambushing gangs, only running to him when she is certain that the coast is clear. Kaito groans, slowly picking himself back up as she nears, rubbing himself on the shoulder.

"Hi," he says, blinking at her when she begins to haul him upright. "What's the hurry?"

"What do you mean, what's the hurry?" Outwardly, he doesn't seem to have sustained any sort of injury other than a bump on his head. "What happened?"

"You left your sledgehammer, so I thought I would give it a try. Maybe dad sort of keyed it to... respond to magic? I don't know. It never does anything when you do it." Kaito picks himself off the ground, groaning. "Anyway, it flung me all the way over here. Rude."

A check reveals that Pandora is still as whole as when they had found it, not a single crack running through its surface despite their best efforts. Aoko hurls it against the ground while Kaito narrows his eyes at Hakuba, who has just hobbled back on his own, looking bewildered. "What?"

"Were you two kissing?" Kaito sounds suspicious, putting his hands on his waist.

Hakuba splutters, and turns a bright tomato red, nearly tripping over. "What? No!"

"The both of you look like that," Kaito waves his hand around vaguely between the two of them, Aoko feeling a blush heat her cheeks. "So I thought something interesting happened. I was going to offer my congratulations if you did… but nevermind that now."

"Congratulations?" Hakuba parrots, while Aoko hurls Pandora right at Kaito's middle, the man letting out a soft 'oof' and going over backwards into the dust. Kaito shrieks, and takes off when Aoko launches herself at him, Hakuba looking more and more confused as they run by in circles.

"Right," he says eventually, obviously trying his best not to sound too lost, and straightens up to hobble back to their camp area. "Right."

Behind him, Aoko tackles Kaito into the dust.

::

Something wakes him in the middle of the night, and it takes a long while to figure out that it is the cold, empty space behind his back where Aoko usually is. He sits up carefully, blankets falling to his lap as he does, rubbing the grit out of his eyes. The stone floor is cold to the touch, and outside, a gentle swelling of singing tells him exactly where Aoko is.

Kaito is lying right next to him, giving off heat like a furnace and deeply asleep. Hakuba shifts himself into a better upright position, and simply watches him. Outside, Aoko serenades the night in her soft alto, signalling that all is right. Quietly, peacefully, Kaito sleeps. Hakuba has never felt more awake nor alive.

"They're still waiting for you to come home." Hakuba murmurs quietly down to Kaito's dark head of tousled hair. "No matter what you think of them. Of us. Your mother… she worries."

There is no answer from Kaito but puffs of even breaths, and Hakuba drags himself to lean up against a nearby bag for support. In the quiet night, the illusion of safety holds strong, and Hakuba isn't afraid to bare all of his wires and heart to a sleeping man who will never wake up.

"They admire you - the people back home. Not your mother, however. I suspect that she knows. She wants me to tell you that whatever you are now, she is still proud of you. I think they enjoy your ridiculous stunts - your daring defiance, I should say - even when you've left them in ruin. I say ruin, but we were never left without an alternative option… Come to think of it, that's part of your plan, isn't it?"

Aoko's voice breaks on a high note, and there's an embarrassed pause before she continues at a lower octave. Hakuba bites his lip, watching Kaito's chest rise and fall steadily.

"I've never thanked you for saving me," he says finally. "Thank you."

(Another cold night, Kaito in Aoko's arms, his face buried in the juncture between her neck and shoulder, before he surges up to kiss her again, and again, and again. Aoko's hands, feather-light on her cheeks, his arms around her waist, and Hakuba is ready to feign sleep when:

"I don't think I'm coming back from this after all."

His cheeks are damp under the slanting moonlight, and Aoko catches hold of him because he can kiss her again.

"Why?"

"Just a feeling," he whispers, not fighting her when she tips his chin up. He trembles, and she lets go of him eventually. "Just a gut feeling."

There's clearly more to it, but they think Hakuba is asleep, and Aoko never presses. Instead, she whispers into his ear, Kaito sniffing and nodding along to her words that are too quiet for Hakuba to make out, posture screaming of despair.

Just a gut feeling, and Kaito is crying.)

Before him, Kaito sleeps, and Hakuba sighs silently.

"Don't die," he says. "Goodnight."

He doesn't see the quiet gleam of indigo as Kuroba opens his eyes.

::

He snaps awake to a rough hand on his shoulder, nearly choking in fear at the dark figure leaning over him before Kaito snaps a white gloved hand before his eyes. The monocle gleams over one eye, and Hakuba wakes up fully at the serious look on his face.

"Up," Kaito hisses. "They're here. You've got to hide."

It's the middle of the night. Aoko is nowhere to be found, and the silence is ominous.

"What do I have to do?" He whispers, Kaito equipping himself quickly with weapons. A handful of what looks to be glass marbles goes into his right pocket, and a knife is slipped into his boot. Kaito looks ready for war.

"Hide," Kaito says curtly. "You can't win. Stay out of sight. How good are you with a gun?"

"...not very."

"Hold on to this anyway. Don't use it unless you are completely certain that you can get the shot in." Hakuba nearly drops the gun Kaito gives him, clutching it to himself, wide-eyed. "Up, up. We don't have much time. Aoko's going to distract them. Come with me."

"Who… ?" Hakuba struggles up out of the sheets, pulling on his ankle brace and hobbling after Kaito as quickly as he could, the other man clicking his tongue impatiently. "Distraction?" Sharp anxiety rakes its sharp claws into his open chest, and Kaito grabs hold of him by the upper arm, hauling him along when he falters.

"We'll all be better off if we can get you out from underfoot as quickly as possible. You're no match against them." He digs a hand into his pocket, and then holds out what Hakuba recognizes as the keys to his cycle, unstrapping the coordinator from his wrist. "Take these."

"And you do?" The implication of the items that Kaito is handing over has Hakuba shaking his head, taking a defiant step back. There's an odd, static-y feeling settling into his head, blanketing out all other thoughts that he may have.

"No," he says, numb even as Kaito snarls. "I won't."

"Don't be stubborn." He flinches violently when Kaito grabs for him, only for the coordinator to be strapped roughly to his wrist, Kaito squeezing his hand close around the cycle keys. "Take it. I don't know if you still remember the way back, but… I've put our maps into this bag. Use it if you need it. Key in the coordinates and it will show you your way."

Kaito depresses a button on the side of the coordinator, and presses a few hotkeys on the small projection. Hakuba's heart stutters as the familiar coordinates home flashes across the small screen, the steady blue light pointing straight ahead from his wrist. "You - "

"Yes, yes," Kaito says impatiently, already turning away to dig into the bags. "Batteries, here. Food. Whatever medical supplies we can spare - "

"I'm not going," Hakuba cuts in firmly, clenching his hand into a fist. "I'm not leaving you this time."

Surprise crosses Kaito's face for a moment, before anger floods in. "Now is not the time to be arguing with me - " he begins, only for the rest of his words to be drowned out by a sharp, high-pitched whistling that pierces through the air. Kaito curses, and Hakuba looks up to see a ball of light streaking upwards to the sky, exploding outwards in a starburst pattern of yellow and orange sparks. The grip on his wrist tightens, then Kaito tugs him close infinitesimally. "I have to go. Hide. Stay alive. No matter what you do - don't put yourself in danger. Please, Hakuba. Just this once, don't fight me on this."

Mouth dry, Hakuba nods mutely. Kaito looks like he has more to say, but instead steps close, an arm coming up to pull him close into a brief hug, Hakuba nearly pulled off balance into him. Hakuba says nothing as Kaito tucks his head down into his shoulder, holding on to his shirt as if he is frightened. Awkwardly, Hakuba is about to pat him when Kaito abruptly lets go of him, cold air and distance rushing in to take the space he'd just been in. A swirl of white, and KID stares back coldly at him in full uniform, as cold and as untouchable as the moon. As Hakuba stares, KID's lips curve into a smile, giving him a mock salute before disappearing, leaving Hakuba all alone by himself once more as he did so many years ago. Hakuba watches the white figure reappear a block away, jogging towards the amphitheatre, and doesn't stop watching until he is completely out of sight.

 _Just a gut feeling._

 _I'm not coming back._

His father's murderer. Kaito, eight again, sitting up in bed sweating because he cannot sleep.

 _I think I can tell the future._

Hakuba reaches down for the knife he took from Aoko, and follows.

::

The first person that isn't Aoko to burst into the clearing gets a knife to the throat, their cycle veering off wildly into a large pile of rubble as Kaito turns to deal with the next threat. A spray of bullets hit the ground next to his feet, and he quickly abandons his hiding place for the next, always taking care to stay within the shadows, keeping an eye out for Aoko when she comes within reach. It gets warm, warmer, until the hot bite of magic around his throat has him freezing in place, not having noticed in time that Spider has woven his illusion around him after all.

Fucking amateurs, and all that, Kaito tells himself.

So. Magic means Spider, and Spider means that Aoko hasn't managed to detain him at all. There isn't much time to worry about her safety, not when his own is already in jeopardy without him realising. He doubts that Aoko is in much danger at the moment, however. Spider isn't one to let such an opportunity pass him by silently - if he had her, he would be gloating over her maimed or dead body by now. Spider had an interesting personality like that. Charming, Kaito knows.

Still, all the better. Spider is now entirely his.

He wouldn't have wanted Aoko to face such a man alone.

The ground beneath him ripples, and Kaito quickly drops into a crouch, wedging himself up into a tight space in the recesses of a broken down wall, refusing to be flushed out by Spider's tricks. The rough grit against his hands help to ground him, and he listens intently for anything that might give away Spider's location to him. Quiet, crunching footsteps, and then the ground stops moving. The buildings are still exactly where they were standing before Kaito had closed his eyes, and warily, carefully, he gets to his feet.

"Oh, my dear boy," comes a foreign, drawling voice. "A dead body! How you have changed."

He's standing a good distance away from the sunken amphitheatre, giving it a careful berth as he turns over his own member's dead body with one foot. He looks mildly disgusted.

"Yeah? You're in luck, then. You're in agreement with majority of the people I've come across lately." Kaito is careful to echo his voice around the area so that Spider wouldn't be able to pick out his location if he hasn't done so already. "You were a great teacher, you know that? So thank you for that."

"Why, you're very much welcome." Spider calls back warmly, and the only warning that Kaito has is the sudden scent of warm metal in the air, and he quickly employs the explosives he's rigged into one of the building to blow. It's hard to tell if Spider is standing within the area of where the rubble should fall, but not wanting to take any chances with him, Kaito dashes out

"You're very much welcome," Spider calls, and then Kaito feels the scent of magic thickening, a hook tugging deep inside his gut, and quickly, before the illusion can take hold, Kaito traces it back to its source, and pinpointing his location, triggers one of the explosives he's wired to a building nearby, white flashing out as the ground roars, the remains of a building toppling over, ruined.

He doesn't give his location away yet, running out from cover even though his ears are ringing, balance unsteady, opening fire into the unsettled dust with a machine gun, emptying bullets into where he can sense the strong pulse of magic as he runs for the next cover. Laughter, and then pain lances into his shoulder, Kaito falling back immediately, his own knife sticking out of his shoulder.

"Party tricks, KID? Unimaginative, unimaginative… "

Kaito feels bile in his throat as he laughs again, that same laugh from before, the sour sick taste of magic in the air building again. He hurls himself out of the way just in time as the familiar hot snap and flash of Spider's magic, signature red slashes through the air where he'd been standing. Kaito can taste rust in the back of his throat, and snarls.

The ground where he was is singed black.

Taking a deep breath, he throws out a clumsily woven offensive spell, waiting for the crackle and fizzle as Spider meets it with one of his own, before casting the actual curse, hands quickly going through the motions before him. Realising his feint for what it is, Spider draws back quickly, the air pressure in the area building up as he shouts something foreign, sweat beading on Kaito's forehead -

A loud mechanical roar, and then Aoko's cycle guns into view, Snake bursting into view with her in hot pursuit. She is holding a lit explosive high in one hand, and Kaito ducks as she drives upwards, taking a leap with her cycle to clip Spider on the head with the wheel, effectively ruining his spell as she tosses the explosive down in the same motion.

Everything happens quickly after that.

Spider goes to the ground, and Aoko's cycles goes out from under her when she lands, his partner rolling with the momentum and back on her feet quickly, diving for cover. Kaito hashes together a shield just in time for the explosive to ignite, feeling heat and debris blasted at him from a close distance. This time, it takes much longer for his vision to return, the ringing in his ears too loud to make out anything else not in the immediate area.

There's something hot and heavy pulsing away in his pocket, and more than just slightly dazed, Kaito reaches a hand into his pocket just to pull his hand away, the tips of his fingers red. Pandora is burning up, and scalds like acid when in contact with skin, and Kaito has no idea and no time to dwell on why it is active now of all times because suddenly then there are hands on his throat and Spider is bearing him down into the ground, strangling him.

He chokes, and the barrel of the gun he is holding digs into the soft of Spider's belly, who only chuckles and chokes him harder. Through the haze, he can see Spider's lips moving, and his instincts are screaming at him to pull the trigger, to put the bullet into Spider and to put an end to this, but his finger is frozen on the trigger and he can feel Spider laughing at him.

A few paces away, Aoko is dragged back down to the ground by Snake. There's a flash of metal, and black licks at the edges of Kaito's vision, the gun falling out of a hand gone slack, his strength deserting him and all of a sudden, he can breathe again, the heavy weight of Spider being dragged off of him, Kaito glimpsing Hakuba's pale face behind Spider's shocked expression, a knife sticking out of the illusionist's back. As he watches, drags himself backwards away from Spider, Hakuba picks up the abandoned gun on the ground and empties a single bullet into Spider's head.

The moment seems to stretch on forever, Spider's body slumping to the ground, gore splattering over KID's white suit and shoes, the gun falling to the ground with a dull clack. Hakuba looks like he is in shock, jaw clenched tight and beginning to shake. Kaito vaguely registers Aoko wrenching Snake's head back and cutting a wide slash across his throat, painting the ground with his blood, dropping the body to the ground and flicking blood off her fingers.

Shakily, Kaito reaches into his pocket and retrieves Pandora, nearly dropping it with a pained hiss as it burns into his skin.

No longer the blueish, semi-opaque rock, Pandora instead spills a vivid red light all over his hands, the rock itself pulsing like a beating heart in his grip. More than just a little horrified, Kaito stares.

"Not the volley comet," says Aoko from behind him, dawning horror in her voice. "An eclipse."

"But the moon is right there." Hakuba, fainter, then Kaito tunes them all out entirely.

A penumbral lunar eclipse. They had much less time than they thought. It makes a funny sort of sense, what with his dad being the magician of the moonlight, but now is not the right time to be laughing at jokes. In his hands, the mess of whatever Pandora is is waking up, the thick protective layer of magic that is his father's work unravelling quickly.

He doesn't think he's encountered magic like this before - nothing that feels like it has a life of its own, that sounds like a roomful of clashing cymbals and nails gouging out the tender parts of his head. Pandora is a violent, destructive storm of broken glass and sharp teeth, greed contained in a form that is by far too small, and -

And his father had given it a physical form, and a physical rock is something that he can break.

His odds are pretty good, he thinks. He's done it before, and he can do it again.

Slipping his conscious into the spell is easy, just like an afterthought. Pandora snatches him up greedily, red hot pulse of trouble all around him. It's a little more difficult avoiding being shredded or being distracted, but he manages, navigating it as quickly as he dares. He doesn't quite register the burning in his throat, half realises that he's barely upright and that the ground is much closer to his face that it had been, and it very much feels like his bones are melting. Not that it matters, because it's _there_ , Pandora's blueprint, pattern and structure clicking together in his head and he understands that now he has it's heart. Magic, someone had said before, is a coming together of calculated intent and assorted elements. If he can understand how it comes together, he will know how to break it apart again.

It's - worse than pulling teeth. Pandora fights him every step of the way as he disrupts patterns, interrupts the flow of its path by emptying his magic directly into it. He had once thought that nothing could hurt more than back when he had over-exerted himself creating their first purification crystal, but felt very much like him trying to turn himself inside-out, magic searing along his nerves in a fiery hot blaze of pain. It's bad, and he doesn't allow himself to think on how bad even when warm red soaks into the front of his shirt and splatters onto the ground. He doesn't have a large recess of magic, not like the more practiced users. His life source won't last forever enough for him to nullify the curse, but - he isn't alone, and he doesn't need forever.

He thinks he shouted, lips forming Aoko's name, and it is much harder to extract himself from the mesmerizing, destructive meld that is Pandora, nearly impossible to loosen his grip around it's form. He forces himself to, anyway, Aoko nodding at him with a pale face and a tight grip on her sledgehammer. It's rather interesting how his vision is fragmented now, but again, pressing issues.

In his hand, Pandora jerks - he likes to think that it is from fear, because then that would mean that whatever they are doing is working - and he instinctively tightens the choke hold of his magic on it. It's barely just left his fingers when Aoko, with a loud yell, brings the sledgehammer down upon it, nearly taking with her his fingers.

Nothing happens for a moment, and then he feels it shudder in the grip of his own magic. Slowly, in a building momentum, fissures widening into faults and magic splintering, something _gives_ , and too late, horribly, he realises that it is going to blow.

 _So burn everything_ , a voice in his head says in the brief vacuum of a space as everything collasculates inwards. _And leave nothing behind_.

He thinks he hears his own name on the wind, and then the whole world burns.

::

There's a wide expanse of blue when he opens his eyes.

The blue is startling, because he's never seen it outside of faded photographs and illustration books before. It all pales in comparison to the real thing, and Kaito blinks to make sure he isn't dreaming. All his life, the sky had been a mix of sickly yellow and grey, and seeing it being blue feels like an important, large missing piece of his life has just slotted back into place.

Moving turns out to be a phenomenally bad idea. Pain lances through his head, and he barely manages a whimper before the throbbing pain chokes the voice out of him. That gets him attention, and Kaito squints helplessly up at the shadows that move in closer, swaying overhead to block out the light. Somebody is murmuring quietly - to him? - and he whimpers when they touch him. It _burns_ , and upon realizing that they are hurting him, they're quick to move away. The words come quicker now, apologetic, frantic, and he squeezes his eyes close, his body making the decision for him and passing out once more, wiping the pain and the nausea away.

It all comes back to him through a thick haze, bits and pieces of it drifting slowly back to form a cohesive picture each time he wakes up, Kaito managing to stay awake for longer each time he does. They're always nearby - Aoko and Hakuba, and the first thing he does when he feels more or less like himself again is to reach for her hand, just to make sure that they're all there. She is, and the brilliant smile that blooms on her face is more than worth the pain. He doesn't even mind the tears that much.

He's told that he's been out for three weeks. Three gruelling weeks in which they weren't certain if he would ever make it, delirious and feverish throughout and never responding. He's lost a lot of blood, she tells him. They cannot ascertain the internal damage he's done to himself. The damage to his hands may not be permanent, but only time can tell. She cries on him again, and even though it still hurts like the devil to be touched, he lets her, and only shares a look with Hakuba who sits close nearby. The pain means that he is still alive, and everything could have been much worse.

Much, much worse, he thinks.

It's a good start.

Because there isn't much he can do while he is sick and recovering, he spends most of his time observing. Aoko and Hakuba seems to have gotten a whole lot closer while he was out, judging from their body language with each other, the way Aoko leans towards him unconsciously and how Hakuba replies to that by always turning towards her like a flower seeking the sun. It's an interesting development. Aoko seems happy, happier than she had been in ages despite the dark bruises under her eyes, and Hakuba carries himself with a lightness that wasn't there before even if his brow creases in worry each time he looks over at Kaito. He still finds it hard to keep himself from smiling stupidly when their little familiar touches from childhood now fluster each other, and since thinking about them is much easier than wondering exactly how much of his life he had burnt out, he thinks about their likely confession and the speech he will have to make.

Hakuba tends to him tirelessly and tenderly, and never gives him an excuse to ask for Aoko instead. Not that Kaito can, because his voice is completely gone, throat scratched raw. What Kaito means is that he never gives him a cause to complain, wiping him down with a rag and cool water daily, carefully feeding him soggy bits of crackers and diluted soup when he can keep food down, holding him up and cleaning up again when he throws up painfully, streaks of red mixing into the grey contents of his stomach. Hakuba doesn't say anything, but Kaito can feel his worry, and nuzzles into the palm of his hand pretending that he is still half asleep.

With Pandora goes the curse, and some of their problems - or what they know, at least. The moon is, as they say, white, and he spends all the time they allow him outdoor staring up at the sky. When it rains, the water is clean and it doesn't burn anymore. Hakuba refuses to carry him out into the rain, but they let him stick his foot in it, Kaito wheezing in delight when his foot only gets wet and cold and nothing else happens. It's hardly a solution to everything, however. Pandora's destruction will not fix the damage already done to the land, nor can it bring back the plant and animal life that it's already driven into extinction. But with this, Kaito hopes they all have a better fighting chance.

He's dozing off on Aoko's lap, wrapped snugly in a blanket that smells like Hakuba, blinking sleepily up at wisps of clouds and a speck of white that is slowly getting smaller when Aoko speaks.

"What now?" She runs fingers over his scalp gently, and scratches it for him when he purrs quietly. "What are we going to do now that Pandora is gone, and we're free to live our lives again?"

Kaito blinks. The endless expanse of blue sky while peaceful, holds no answer for him. "Don't know," he whispers eventually, wincing at the scratch of his throat. "What do you want to do?"

Aoko doesn't reply immediately, head bowed. It is hard to make out her expression with the light behind her, but Kaito is patient. "Home?" She says at last, voice trembling just the slightest. "...But it won't be the same."

"I know."

"And now the world has no more need for KID." Aoko's hand finds his, but she doesn't try to squeeze his hand. "We can go home, if you want to, but… what do _we_ do?"

A lifetime of chasing after their fathers' shadow, years of being in a role not their own, living by their words. The future stretches on frightfully ahead of them, and without a goal, without Pandora, Kaito doesn't know what to do. He still feels raw, ungrounded, adrift now that they, too, have destroyed their own identity. Just like that, their purpose and constant is now a thing of the past, and they are entirely left on their own.

It's terrifying.

Something white and heavy settles onto him, and Kaito looks up as Hakuba settles himself down next to the both of them, tucking the ends of KID's cloak around him carefully, expression neutral.

"Don't mind my interruption," Hakuba says, once he is done, hands lying flat before him on his thighs. "But I think the world still very much needs the both of you as Nakamori Aoko and Kuroba Kaito, even if it doesn't need KID. _I_ need you. I've spoken to Aoko, and now all there is left is to convince you, Kaito, if you will allow me to. Please, stay. And if you will, we can return home together."

Hearing his own name from Hakuba's lips sends a jolt of longing through him so strong that Kaito nearly chokes. Hakuba is still watching him steadily, non-judgmentally, _kindly_ , and Kaito scrabbles for his hand before he can stop himself.

"I'm sorry," he blurts, vision blurring with the tears in his eyes, bottled up emotions now spilling over with the space that he is allowed to do so. He's fifteen, eight, trying to fix a mistake he has no idea where to begin, hoping that words will more than make up for his errors. "I'm sorry. I never meant to - I'm so sorry, Saguru. If you - "

He never gets to finish the end of his sentence, Hakuba scooping him up into a loose embrace, leaning in to press a kiss to the top of his head. His cheeks are wet, and Kaito sniffs noisily, trying to hide his face behind his hands, embarrassed.

"It's alright," Hakuba says. "I will forgive you."

Aoko sounds like she's crying, too, and while none of them knows where they will be headed to in the future, or whether they will lay the KID name down in the dust to rest with the remains of Pandora, it is just as Hakuba points out to them.

With all the time in the world, they will figure it out.

Together.

::

 _Never once have I doubted the strength and the kindness of our future generation, and similarly, I have never worried for our future._

 _-Nakamori Ginzo_

 **-END**


End file.
